It's not a question of blaming trade deals OR blaming automation.

[OrwellwasRight]

39. You continue to misunderstand.

Globalization existed in a major way during the era of Spain and Portugal's imperial domination of the Western Hemisphere. And it didn't produce widespread shared prosperity any more than it does today.

Record levels of trade existed again before World War I, far surpassing global trade in any other known period of history. The people of Europe were even told that there could never be another war because countries who trade together would never fight each other. Boy was that a lie. And this was basically the Gilded Age--there was no widespread sharing in the wealth created.

In the early 2000s, trade again hit a new high. But again, the benefits were not broadly shared.

People oppose the NAFTA and TPP and similar instruments of global neoliberalism because they can lock in--in a way that mere domestic legislation does not--rules that harm the working class and benefit the already economic elite. A domestic law can be undone by the next Congress. However, since WWII, the US has not pulled out of any trade deal or agreed to any amendment that would make a deal more progressive. It is not an exaggeration to say that locking in neoliberalism through international rules is far more problematic than ever before. That is a huge problem that is correctly recognized by the people you so demean. And it has nothing to do with HRC. It has to do with all Dems and their plans to support global neoliberal rules or not. Plenty of people that voted for her also fought the TPP, many of them right here on DU.